updated 07:33 pm EDT, Mon August 27, 2012

Talks with Twitter fail to work around token restrictions

Tapbots has stopped public testing of the alpha version of Tweetbot for Mac and pulled the code offline, according to the developer's blog. The company blames a recent change to the official Twitter API, which restricts the number of "tokens" an app can have, in turn limiting the number of customers an app can support without Twitter's approval. The end of the alpha program is an attempt by Tapbots to keep the maximum number of copies for sale once the app is finished.

"As some of you may have already noticed the download link for the Tweetbot for Mac alpha no longer works," Tapbots writes. "Twitter's latest API Changes means now we have a large but finite limit on the number of user tokens we can get for Tweetbot for Mac. We've been working with Twitter over the last few days to try to work around this limit for the duration of the beta but have been unable to come up with a solution that was acceptable to them. Because of this we've decided its best for us to pull the alpha."

Tweetbot is best known as a Twitter client for the iPhone and iPad. The app supports features such as multiple timelines, gesture controls, and the ability to sync settings between devices.

Well, yeah, that's kind of the point of my original comment. This is the first time I can recall where a story about someone complaining about API limitations isn't making an excuse to blame Apple. Do you even read other people's comments before replying?